Editors ́ Picks

Dire humanitarian situation in Jemen

EDITOR:

Murat Suner

Before the current conflict, Yemen was already the poorest country in the Middle East. Over 10 million people were going hungry, including 1 million acutely malnourished children. This number has increased by nearly 3 million since the conflict began reports Oxfam.

According to the NGO more than 21 million people – nearly 84% of the population – currently have no access to clean water as fuel supplies dwindle.

Violence has damaged homes, schools and even hospitals. So far, over 4,300 civilians have lost their lives and over 1.5 million people have been had to flee their homes.

Food and diesel, which is needed to pump clean water, are increasingly in short supply and their prices are rising – putting these basic necessities out of reach for ordinary families. And at a time when people desperately need them, vital supplies can’t enter the country. That could prove disastrous, because Yemen relies on imports for 90 per cent of its food.

Further to this, Human Rights Watch reported yesterday, that the Saudi Arabia-led coalition forces appear to have used cluster munition rockets in at least seven attacks in Yemen’s northwestern Hajja governorate, killing and wounding dozens of civilians. The attacks were carried out between late April and mid-July 2015.

It is critical that the government pushes for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, so that vital humanitarian assistance can be delivered to people in Yemen. Oxfam calls for action to prevent any further suffering to those who already desperately need help.

26.Aug

August 26th, 2015

Protests turn violent in Nepal

EDITOR:

Vanessa Ellingham

Violence between protesters and security forces escalated in western Nepal this week. The government should order an independent and impartial investigation into all protest-related deaths and ensure that security forces deployed to restore order remain disciplined and respect basic rights. Leaders on all sides of the debate over increased autonomy should refrain from further violence.

Protests in the Kailali district over provisions in the country’s draft constitution have led to the reported deaths of up to 3 protesters and 17 members of the security forces deployed to contain the protests. Unknown numbers are being treated for injuries. The protesters apparently targeted police officers, who were outnumbered.

“Nepal’s government is squarely to blame for its failure to engage with the local community and address its concerns, which led to this horrific escalation, but violent attacks on police can only be deplored,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government needs to take immediate steps to restore order and prevent retaliation by the police.”

Large parts of Nepal have been rocked by violent protests over the last few weeks, as indigenous and disenfranchised groups took to the streets to demand that the new draft constitution address their longstanding grievances and include them in an equal and participatory democratic state. At least four protesters died in previous protests when police responded with seemingly disproportionate force, although the police contend that they were responding in self-defence. After the protests turned violent, the government responded by deploying the army across Kailali and two neighboring districts.

25.Aug

August 25th, 2015

Killing in the name of justice

EDITOR:

Murat Suner

Saudi Arabia has executed on average one person every two days, according to a report released on Tuesday by Amnesty International reports the Guardian.

Over the last 12 months at least 175 people have been killed.

The report 'Killing in the Name of Justice' exposes the shockingly arbitrary use of the death penalty in the Saudi Arabia. According to Amnesty International the death sentence is often imposed after trials that blatantly flout international standards.

“Sentencing hundreds of people to death after deeply flawed legal proceedings is utterly shameful. The use of the death penalty is horrendous in all circumstances, and is particularly deplorable when it is arbitrarily applied after blatantly unfair trials,” said Said Boumedouha, Acting Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International.

The kingdom follows a strict interpretation of Islamic law and applies the death penalty to a number of crimes including murder, rape and drug smuggling. Saudi courts allow for people to be executed for adultery, apostasy and witchcraft. People can also be executed for crimes committed when they were below 18 years of age.

“Saudi Arabia’s faulty justice system facilitates judicial executions on a mass scale,” Said Boumedouha, acting director of Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa program, said in a statement.

The kingdom is in the top five countries in the world for putting people to death. It ranked third in 2014, after China and Iran, and ahead of Iraq and the United States, according to Amnesty International figures.

24.Aug

August 24th, 2015

Refugees Welcome vs. Asylum for All?

EDITOR:

Gurmeet Singh, Berlin

If you’d heard of Heidenau before this weekend, chances are you’re either from there or you’ve seen it on your way out of Dresden. Lying 13km or so outside the state capital, the quiet Saxon town has rarely, if ever, been the centre of a national attention, let alone a national debate. Then came the weekend.

A warehouse, unused for two years, formerly a large hardware store, was to be the site of a temporary shelter for incoming asylum seekers. This item of news would be of interest itself, claimed Die Zeit, but no one has been concerned with the appropriateness of the site, nor have the plans for potentially further asylum seekers been discussed; everyone has been talking about the riots.

Since Friday evening, protestors have lined the main street of Heidenau, demonstrating against the arrival of approximately 600 asylum seekers. The first busload, thought to contain about 250 migrants arrived on Satuday morning; a parallel NPD demonstration took place in the street. Die Zeit reports that by the time the migrants had been ushered into the warehouse, behind police buses, the riots had begun.

Bottles and stones flew, as somewhere between 150 and 200 demonstrators against the stopgap asylum shelter clashed with about 170 police. The police retaliated with batons. Reuters reports that many of the demonstrators were drunk, and in the melee, many were hurt – police included, one seriously.

A counter-demonstration was also held – which is heartening – and drew up to 100 people protesting against right-wing extremism.

Many of the asylum seekers are reportedly from Iraq and Syria. Germany has seen an increase in asylum applications this year, with over 75,000 lodged already – already more than the total number lodged in 2014.

On August 21, 2013, the government of Bashar al-Assad used chemical bombs against Syrian civilians in Ghouta. Several opposition-controlled areas in the suburbs around Damascus, Syria, were struck by rockets containing the chemical agent sarin and hundreds to thousands of men, women and children died.This was the worst chemical attack for a quarter of a century, since the Halabja killings by Saddam Hussein in 1988.

After Ghouta, the world was outraged and finally paid attention to what was happening in Syria. What followed were international assessments, an UN investigation and US president

Obama said a red line had been crossed. But the international political situation has changed and the international community of states swayed to and fro whether or not to use Bashar al-Assad’s government in the fight against terrorism. And so, after two years after the killing in the Ghouta the chemical attacks against Syrian civilians continue today. The barrel bombs packed with chlorine and explosives, routinely used on Syrian neighborhoods, seem to be ignored by the international community, also one of the reasons for many Syrians to flee their country but overshadowed by the European refugee discussion. This week, over 100 civilians were killed and 500 were injured in aerial attacks on a market in Douma. Yet this time the world is completely silent.

To break this silence, organisations as the Iraqi-German association WADI and Planet Syria, a wide network that includes over a hundred Syrian civil society groups, are asking people around the world to join or organise a #ClearTheSky action to show their support for clearing Syrian skies of bombs. They exclaim the Global Day of Action on the Second Anniversary of the Chemical Attacks on Ghouta. May their voices be heard and lead to action.

This fall the U.N. conference on climate change in Paris (COP21) will try to make a difference: 20 years after the first conference in Berlin in 1995 it aims to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2°C.

Since 1995 the carbon dioxide emission have doubled, and the goal to turn away from fossil fuel consumption until the end of the century reminds of economist John Maynard Keynes famous saying "In the long run we are all dead", rather than a plan.

Against that background, ahead of the UN climate summit COP21, the innovation camp POC21, aims to deliver the proof of concept that a fossil-free, resource-efficient society can be built by citizen pioneers.

“We've exhaustively discussed the problems - and even solutions to - climate change and resource depletion. What we lack are new formats and fresh minds to create feasible results for the vast majority of people.” said Daniel Kruse, co-founder of POC21.

The organizers OuiShare (Paris) and Open State (Berlin) brought together around 100 citizenpioneerstojoinforcesatMillemontCastlenear Paris. Duringfiveweeksofco-makingandco-living,theirgoalwillbeto prototype a newbreedofopen-source,sustainableproducts.

As the great thinker, architect, inventor and activist R. Buckminster Fuller said: "Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment."

We can't wait until the end of the century. It's time to hurry up.

fairplanet will report weekly from the innovation camp POC21. POC21 is running a live magazine to provide continues updates from the camp.

19.Aug

August 19th, 2015

Open borders the only way forward

EDITOR:

Vanessa Ellingham

"Open borders are the simplest and most effective way to help asylum seekers."

This is what migration researcher François Gemenne told German magazine Stern in an interview last weekend.

Gemenne, a migration specialist who lectures at Sciences Po and the Free University of Brussels, argues that opening or closing borders have no influence over whether desperate migrants choose to make their journeys.

Gemenne says the ineffectiveness of closed borders is evident worldwide.

"Another example," he explains in the interview, "the wall between the US and Mexico.It has not changed the number of Mexican immigrants."

"The same goes for the opening of the border between India and Nepal. The will to emigrate depends on structural factors that are beyond any migration policy: poverty, hunger, war.

"If we allow people to come by plane or ferry, they will not have to drown in the sea."

And yet, the EU has invested almost 1.3 billion EUR in border control and defense against migrants since 2009.

Gemenne says directing resources towards border control is a waste of money.

"Ever the idea to try to control or restrict migration is absurd. These are people who run for their lives. And no border in the world will stop them in their fear of death."

"Then there are those who are sent to allow their family or community a better life," he explains. " These people have often saved money for years. The survival of many people depends on them - they can also not be stopped by any border."

"What will increase in the future, is migration due to changing environmental conditions. Climate refugees. We must finally rethink and accept migration as part of our reality."

"We still haven't internalized the idea that migration is a part of our reality - and a fundamental right of every human being."

17.Aug

August 17th, 2015

Trump: saving America, and the world.

EDITOR:

Gurmeet Singh, Berlin

After weeks of hot air comes the hot air balloon: Donald Trump has finally outlined some policies. He probably won’t win the Republican nomination – which many analysts predict will go to Jeb Bush (a story in itself). And he’s obviously using the campaign to bolster his biggest and most successful brand – himself. Now, none of this is either incredibly important or interesting – outrageous people in the media exist perennially, and become marginally more interesting during election times. What is interesting however, is not only how popular Donald Trump seems, but how uncritically his remarks are accepted.

The Guardian also mentions that Trump is opposed to abortion except in cases of rape or incest, or where the mother’s life is at risk. He also said he’d cut funding to Planned Parenthood, a women’s health organisation if it continued to provide abortions.

Global politics is complex. So complex that to subsume it under a single narrative leads to all kinds of errors, if not actual lives lost (think of the good vs. bad idea we’ve heard since the Cold War – and something that continues in Trump’s policies). I certainly don’t pretend to have any answers – but Mr. Trump’s supporters continue to live in a fantasy-land where a single person’s (a rich, white, American man’s) bombastic speeches and mercenary ideas will save the world. “Take back the oil fields”, “deport illegal immigrants”, “review abortion laws”: not only will Trump restore the global order, he will set American demographics aright, as well as realigning its moral compass.

As I said, it’s probably not that important that Trump has said these things – he’s probably not going to win. It’s important for him to continue to be in the limelight, however, and if being a loudmouth, if sometimes entertaining, crank gets him there, then that’s fine by him. That’s obviously not to say Trump is the problem; he’s only an extreme case of politics and media obsessed with image and sound-bite.

But around the globe, there’s not only a feeling of fatigue for this very American charade of fantasy and privilege, there’s a real desire to let the hot air balloon sail on, so the real business of carrying out helpful politics can continue.

Image: The Guardian

14.Aug

August 14th, 2015

Rape enshrined in the name of Allah

EDITOR:

Ama Lorenz

“In the moments before he raped the 12-year-old girl, the Islamic State fighter took the time to explain that what he was about to do was not a sin. Because the preteen girl practiced a religion other than Islam, the Quran not only gave him the right to rape her — it condoned and encouraged it, he insisted.” Thus the story begins in the New York Times and actually you do not want to read more. But there is more to know and nobody should close his eyes. Author Rukmini Callimachi delivers an extraordinary account of the ISIS’ extensively planned sex and slave trade centred on Yazidi women. Pre-teen girls are sold and then raped in order for their rapists to feel closer to God.

Rapes in the name of Allah are one of the terrible things that ISIS’, the self-proclaimed Islamic state that's attempting to establish a caliphate across large areas of Iraq and Syria, justifies, even more: demands.

The systematic rape of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority has become deeply enmeshed in the organization and the radical theology of the Islamic State in the year since the group announced it was reviving slavery as an institution.

According to the NYT article a total of 5,270 Yazidis were abducted last year, and at least 3,144 are still being held.

Human Rights Watch reports about 11 women and 9 girls, who had escaped between September 2014 and January 2015. Half, including two 12-year-old girls, said they had been raped – some multiple times and by several ISIS fighters. Nearly all of them said they had been forced into marriage; sold, in some cases a number of times; or given as “gifts.” The women and girls also witnessed other captives being abused.

Many survivors of sexual violence are still not receiving the full help and support they desperately need. Amnesty International’s Senior Crisis Response Advisor, Donatella Rovera demands: “The Kurdistan Regional Government, UN and other humanitarian organizations who are providing medical and other support services to survivors of sexual violence must step up their efforts. They must ensure they are swiftly and proactively reaching out to all those who may need them, and that women and girls are made aware of the support available to them.”

While the news sites keep being covered by the so-called Islamic State and related terror and anti-terror activities, the Syrian government forces continue to operate with terror and illegal barrel bombs against civilians - hardly covered by the news.

Now, again, a series of barrel bombs dropped by Syria's government has killed at least 75 people and wounded dozens others in Aleppo province, according to medical sources and a monitoring group reports Al Jazeera today.

The deaths occurred in two separate incidents on Saturday when helicopters dropped explosives-filled barrels, which are deemed illegal under international law.

One barrel bomb hit the rebel-held Shaar neighbourhood of Aleppo, killing at least 20 people, most of them from the same family, local activists have told Al Jazeera.

In the second attack, at least 55 people were killed after bombs hit a busy market in al-Bab city - about 40km northeast of Aleppo city, which is controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which documents violence through a network of activists on the ground, dubbed the al-Bab attack as a "massacre", adding that the number of dead likely would rise because many of the wounded were in critical condition.

Since months, according to a report by Amnesty International, sheer terror and unbearable suffering has forced many civilians in Aleppo to eke out an existence underground to escape the relentless aerial bombardment of opposition-held areas by government forces."